There has been a shooting at a Finnish school; the suspect is a 12-year-old student / Article

The police said that the suspect was detained and that he was only a 12-year-old student of this school. A firearm was also found on him at the time of his arrest. The student fled the scene after the shooting and was caught by the police in Tapulikaupunki, the northern district of Helsinki.

The incident is being investigated as murder and attempted murder.

The shooting took place in the Jokiranta building of Viertola school, where students from 3rd to 6th grade study. The Viertola school, spread across two locations, has approximately 800 students in grades 1 through 9 and a staff of approximately 90.

The security guards received a call to the scene shortly after nine in the morning. The children were ordered to stay in their classrooms after the incident. The authorities also asked the residents of the area not to approach the school and stay indoors, as well as not to let strangers into their homes.

Like other schools in Finland, children in Vantaa, north of Helsinki, had just returned to school after the Easter weekend.

The Prime Minister of the country, Peteri Orpo, wrote on the microblogging site “X” that the incident was deeply shocking and that his thoughts are with the victims, their relatives and the rest of the school’s students and employees.

Finland’s Minister of the Interior, Mari Rantanen, has also expressed concern.

“It’s been a shocking start to the day. There was a shooting at Wierthol school in Vantaa. I can only imagine the pain and anxiety many families are feeling right now,” they said in a post on the “X” website.

The gun used in the shooting was licensed to a close relative of the shooter, YLE reported. However, the police do not yet have detailed information about the motive for the shooting.

This is not the first tragic shooting in Finland, and the several that have happened so far have increased the public’s attention to the country’s gun policy.

In 2007, an 18-year-old boy, Pekka-Erik Auvinen, shot and killed six students, the school nurse, the principal and himself at Jokela High School near Helsinki.

In 2008, a then 22-year-old student, Mati Sāri, staged a shooting at the Kauhajoki vocational school in northwestern Finland. He killed nine students and one staff member before turning the gun on himself.

Finland has 5.6 million people and hunting and target shooting are popular in the country. In total, more than 1.5 million firearms licenses have been issued in Finland so far and there are approximately 430,000 license holders.

In 2010, the country’s legislation on the possession and use of weapons was tightened, introducing a knowledge test for all applicants for firearms licenses. The age limit for these applicants was also changed from 18 to 20 years.